


Pedestal

by filthyvictorian



Category: MEGANEBU!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 15:24:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filthyvictorian/pseuds/filthyvictorian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story about love, disappointment, and glasses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pedestal

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse any inconsistencies in naming -- some people being referred to by last name, some by first, etc. I'm gonna hope you're all as bad at Japanese names as I am.

When Mitsuki woke up, the first thing he thought of was Soma. He’d dreamed about him again. In his dream, Soma wore a regal suit akin to something a prince might wear and the two danced in an elegant ballroom – this was before the ballroom had turned to a field of gumdrops and they had been attacked by large wolves, and after Mitsuki had been at a café with his well-spoken dog, of course. As Mitsuki went about his morning routine, he got to thinking about what it would be like to really dance with his senpai, in reality and not just a dream or a fantasy. He found himself wondering about a bunch of fantasies-turned-reality as he made his way to school. Would they be even better than how he imagined them? He bet that they would be. But in order for these things to happen he would first have to tell Soma his feelings. Mitsuki laughed internally. There was no way. No, he would stick with being friends with Soma! Just friends. Friends who never go beyond friends. Forever. Friendly. Just… friends. Mitsuki stopped dead in his tracks. Friends forever? Was he really okay with that? No, he decided, he was not! He had to tell Soma his feelings. Today! Today? He hesitated. Then, with a clench of his fist and a nod of his head, he continued down the path to school. Yes, he resolved. Today!

Mitsuki had to wait a while before he could get Soma alone. He had almost got him in the club room during lunch but Hayato, being Hayato, had come in at the worst possible moment and ruined the atmosphere. Mitsuki had dropped a wrench on the boy’s toe. The next time Mitsuki got Soma alone was after school. By then he had almost lost his nerve, but he held fast as he marched up the stairs to the roof with Soma trailing behind. On top of the roof the scene unfolded like something out of an anime: Mitsuki turned purposefully towards Soma, eyes on the ground. Soma looked on curiously as Mitsuki clenched his fists and looked up at Soma, inhaling sharply and trembling a little before he let loose and cried, “Soma-senpai, um.. Will you… I-I mean, I like you a lot, will you go out with me?!” It was clumsy but he didn’t care enough to scold himself at the moment. He was much too nervous for that. He swallowed hard, steeling himself for the answer to come.

Mitsuki had walked home in a stupor. All he could do once he got home was go to his room and throw himself down on the bed and stare up at the ceiling. He was trembling all over. Was that real? Had it actually happened? He pinched himself and it hurt a little despite the sort of numb excitement swelling within him. He hadn’t really been able to process everything on the roof. What had Soma said?

“Huh? You want to go out with me? Oh, you mean on a sort of field trip, of course! We could go to—”

And Mitsuki had cut him off with a sputtering, “N-No, I meant like a girl and a boy go out! Or something!”

Then Soma had looked at him. Really looked at him with eyes as serious as Soma’s could possibly get and he had said, “Really?” And Mitsuki had said “yes,” and then Soma said,

“Alright!”

Mitsuki wasn’t entirely sure what had happened after that, but he recalled giving Soma some sort of an excited response, and then he had walked home and ended up on his bed. This was perfect. This was exactly as he’d hoped it would be. He was in a state of pure ecstasy, unsure whether or not he’d even been alive up until this point. He sprung up from his bed with a renewed sense of energy, everything snapping back into focus. He let his voice cry out in a series of cheers. This is it, he thought as he dropped to his knees and gave Norio, the dog, a hug.

“This is the start of something amazing!”

This was not turning out at all like he’d pictured it. In the two months since they had started dating, he and Soma hadn’t even kissed yet. In fact, nothing had really changed at all. The rest of the club members hadn’t even been alerted of their change in relationship status, and senpai was still interested in glasses above all else – in fact, he had barely brought up the whole dating thing at all. When he’d imagined dating Soma in his head it had all been a lot more… romantic. Moonlit dinners by the sea, long walks through the woods, secluded trips to a ski resort where they’d get snowed in and have no choice but to snuggle up real close to preserve heat! But none of his fantasies were even close to coming true. Why was that, he wondered? Soma-senpai was still Soma-senpai. He was just as perfect as he always had been. Mitsuki just couldn’t wrap his head around it. He thought of asking his newfound partner about it, but decided against the idea. He thought there must be some rule about feeling blind while wearing glasses and he just couldn’t bear the thought of letting his senpai down. He would figure it out eventually.

Another month passed with nothing happening. Mitsuki was frustrated. He was finally dating Soma-senpai, so wasn’t everything meant to be perfect? Wasn’t this supposed to be the start of something amazing? He still hadn’t made any progress thinking about it. He was pondering it in the club room one afternoon when Soma came over to him and said,

“Mitsuki, will you come over to my house today?”

Mitsuki’s heart just about leapt out of his chest. Soma’s house? Together? Maybe even… in the bedroom? A million thoughts bombarded Mitsuki at once, and the boy nodded his head vigorously. Soma smiled and told Mitsuki he was grateful and to meet him by the cherry blossom trees out front after school. Mitsuki thought he might die right there, but if he did that then he would never make it to his senpai’s house! He somehow made it through the rest of the day.

After school, Mitsuki immediately made his way towards the cherry blossom trees, almost forgetting to stop and exchange his indoor shoes for outdoor ones in his haste. It took Soma seven minutes to arrive.

“Sorry! Were you waiting long?” Soma asked. Mitsuki looked coolly up at him and gave him his finest attempt at a lopsided grin.

“I just got here,” he said. He got that line right out of a manga. He was sure it would improve the mood by at least forty percent.

The walk to Soma’s was a bit of a jittery one on Mitsuki’s end, though he couldn’t help but feel more at ease than usual with Soma’s constant chatter, as well as the odd antic. Mitsuki figured it would have been at least ten minutes quicker to walk to Soma’s house if Soma wasn’t walking with him, but he didn’t mind. He smiled the whole way there.

Soma led Mitsuki straight to his bedroom when they got to his house and Mitsuki could barely contain his excitement. He sat down on the bed with his legs open just a little wider than they needed to be, and Soma sat down next to him. Mitsuki’s fingers crept towards Soma’s, but he waited for Soma to make the first move to touch him.

“Hey, Mitsuki…” said Soma, looking the boy right in the eyes.

“Y-Yes, senpai…?”

“Would you…” Soma reached under the bed and took out a small wooden box. Mitsuki felt a shiver go up his spine and he swallowed harshly. Soma’s fingers moved to open the box, and inside was… a pair of glasses. “Would you do me the honour of being the first to test out the X-Ray Glasses Mark 36?”

Mitsuki felt a small part of him die in that moment. He could do nothing but stand up from the bed and cross the bedroom. He had his hand on the doorknob when Soma leapt up and grabbed his elbow.

“Ah, Mitsuki, wait! Where are you going?!” he exclaimed. Mitsuki couldn’t bring himself to speak. His beautiful, perfect Soma was such a complete and utter idiot sometimes. He jerked his arm away and moved again to open the door, but Soma wasn’t having it.

“Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

Mitsuki felt something snap. “Yes! You did! What happened to going out, huh?! Everything has been exactly the same since that day on the roof! Soma-senpai, you’re so… so…!” He couldn’t quite bring himself to insult Soma out loud, so he let himself trail off.

That was when Soma had kissed him. He had reached out, pulled Mitsuki towards him, and smashed his lips into the other boy’s. Their teeth knocked and it kind of hurt but Mitsuki was being kissed by Soma and he just could not care less about anything other than that fact. The kiss was sloppy, but it was still a kiss. Their first kiss. Mitsuki felt himself pushing Soma towards the bed. The two toppled onto it. The teens were slowly but surely figuring out how this kissing thing worked. Mitsuki figured it was a natural thing for him to push Soma’s shirt slowly upwards, for him to guide Soma’s hand towards the button on his jeans. That was how it worked in movies, anyway.

The first time they had sex was messy and awkward and probably would have been hilarious from an outsider’s perspective, but Mitsuki just found it frustrating. How many times had this particular fantasy arisen? Being pinned down and taken by Soma was a dream of his. Well, he was definitely pinned down, anyway, though that fact was mostly due to Soma being uncoordinated – his senpai kept sort of falling on him. Mitsuki always imagined bruises but not ones left like this. He had also imagined a tangle of limbs, and he supposed there was one, but this was because neither boy had any experience in this field and so had no real idea where their limbs were actually meant to go. Mitsuki ended up kicking Soma in the face a few times, once, admittedly, not entirely by accident. Soma had even refused to take his glasses off, which Mitsuki thought might have been hot if not for the fact that he had figured it was better to take his glasses off and therefore couldn’t really see Soma in said glasses. Still, in the end, it felt rather pleasant, so he decided it wasn’t a complete waste despite more fantasies being utterly dashed.

Neither he nor Soma had mentioned the sex even once since it happened. Three weeks had passed since then, and Mitsuki was back to feeling the same frustration as before. He thought that maybe he ought to talk to somebody, and who better than a somebody older and wiser than he? Mitsuki found Shirogane in his classroom after school, getting ready to leave for the day.

“Um…!” exclaimed Mitsuki from the doorway. The teacher looked over at him curiously.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Er… Well, do you think you could help me with a relationship problem? I-I mean, uh, not me exactly, I’m asking for a- for a friend!”

Shirogane smiled knowingly and waved Mitsuki over. The teen sat next to his teacher and adviser, and explained the situation.

Shirogane thought for a few moments before speaking. “I think I see your problem – I mean, your friend’s problem. See, the problem lies not in the relationship, but in the fact that your friend idolized this person to an extreme before the relationship even started. When someone is placed on a pedestal like that, they become something of a false desire. The person your friend is dating is not the same person from your friend’s fantasies. That’s why they’re struggling.”

Could it be? Could it really be that Soma wasn’t the perfect being Mitsuki had always thought of him as? Could it be that Mitsuki’s eyes were clouded by his own feelings to the point where not even glasses could correct his vision? He thanked Shirogane and left the room. He walked home deep in thought. If what Shirogane had said was true then… what could he do? He had to get things back the way they were before. Back when dating Soma was just a faint idea in the back of his head. But how? Everything could never go back to how it was before, not even if they broke up. Especially not if they broke up. He had sure made a mess of things.

That night, Mitsuki couldn’t sleep. He lay awake in bed and thought about what he could do. Maybe he could… Hm… He couldn’t come up with a single idea. He sighed and rolled onto his side. He had just let his eyes slip shut when a sudden, brilliant idea popped into his head and he grabbed his phone in a flurry of excitement. He was about to text Yukiya when he realized the time. 3:32 AM. He could wait ‘til tomorrow to tell his friend.

The next day Mitsuki was running on two and a half hours of sleep but he felt more awake than he had in a while. He got to school eleven minutes before Yukiya. When the other boy finally walked into the clubroom, Mitsuki practically tackled him in excitement.

“Yukiya!” he shouted, and before Yukiya could respond he launched into his request. Yukiya could hardly believe what he was hearing. Soma’s requests were one thing, but this was Mitsuki. He took a couple moments to try and process it before giving up and repeating Mitsuki’s words aloud, making sure he’d heard correctly.

“…Time-travel glasses?”

“Right!”

“…”

In the end, Yukiya accepted the request, taking it on as a challenge. Mitsuki could hardly contain his excitement! Now he could go back and make everything good again. He’d make sure his naïve past self didn’t make the same stupid mistake he had made.

A month and a half later, Mitsuki was beginning to doubt his idea. He wasn’t sure if Yukiya had even made any progress. Were time-travel glasses too impossible, even for him? Could what he had done really not be fixed? He was feeling pretty depressed about the whole thing.

“Mitsuki!” Yukiya exclaimed as he slammed the club room door open. Mitsuki let out a startled squeak.

“They’re done.”

Mitsuki felt his mouth form an ‘O’. He stood from the spot he’d been sitting in and walked towards Yukiya, hands outstretched towards the box he was holding. Could it be? Had Yukiya done it?! Mitsuki opened the box and gingerly picked up the glasses. They looked fairly ordinary except for some buttons and knobs on the sides and a strap to hold the glasses on at the back. He put the glasses on and Yukiya relayed him some instructions. Mitsuki had to admit that he was a little nervous. He fiddled with the controls and took a deep breath. This was it, the moment of truth. He hit the largest button on the frames and… Poof!

Actually, it wasn’t much of a poof at all, or a zap, or a woosh. It was just… nothing, really. He was still standing in the club room. Had Yukiya failed? Mitsuki looked around for signs of time travel. Everything looked about the same, except… Ah! These X-Ray Glasses! He remembered these. Mark 29. The time-travel glasses had worked! Now the real work started. He had to stop himself from confessing to Soma somehow. He looked at the clock. School was in session, but it only started twenty minutes ago. He had about six hours before he and Soma went up to the roof together. He got to thinking up a plan.

His plan basically consisted of keeping track of his past self and attempting to make contact inconspicuously. It was a lot more difficult than he thought it would be. At lunchtime he figured it would be simple to catch him, but right when he was about to make his move, Soma showed up. Mitsuki remembered this. Hayato would be here in a minute. At the time, Mitsuki had been so angry at Hayato for ruining his plans, but now he very begrudgingly thanked him.

The rest of the school day went by in a blur. Shit, thought Mitsuki. He wasn’t going to make it in time. But wait! Hadn’t Mitsuki stopped to pee before meeting Soma on the roof after school? Yes, he could catch him in the bathroom. He slipped coolly into the washroom and waited in an empty stall. He heard footsteps and looked under the door; recognizing his own shows, he moved in for the attack. Sure, a urinal wasn’t an ideal place for conversation, but he couldn’t be picky.

“Hey, you!” Present Mitsuki said, walking up to himself. Past Mitsuki was very startled and came very close to peeing on his present self. “Don’t freak out, okay? But I’m you from the future, and I came back to stop you from doing what you’re about to do. I know it sounds crazy, but you can’t date Soma-senpai!”

Past Mitsuki looked dumbfounded. Present Mitsuki understood his feelings; at that time he had also thought there could be nothing better than dating Soma. To suggest otherwise would be ludicrous!

“It really doesn’t turn out how you think it will. It actually kind of… sucks, a bit. So keep things how they are now! Just admire him from afar! And maybe try to look harder at him.”

Past Soma finished and zipped his pants back up before turning to present Mitsuki with a suspicious look in his eyes. He was going to ask something like ‘how can I trust you?’ before realizing that of course he could be trusted. Mitsuki would never lead himself astray. Past Mitsuki’s eyes softened and he nodded with a bit of a sigh.

“Alright, I promise you I won’t confess to him today.”

Present Mitsuki let out a relieved sigh and smiled at his past self. He figured he ought to leave before things got too strange, so he set his glasses, said his goodbyes, and was sent back to the present.

“Mitsuki! Mornin’!” Soma exclaimed as Mitsuki entered the club room the next day.

“Good morning, senpai!” Mitsuki said, running up to him. It had been four months since Mitsuki swore he met himself from the future. He had been warned by this future version that he should not go through with the plans he had to ask Soma out. He wondered what could have possibly gone wrong. After all, Soma was still his wonderful, gorgeous, perfect self. Mitsuki just couldn’t wrap his head around it, but he supposed it was a better idea to heed the warning nonetheless. Besides, Mitsuki was content to just watch his friend from afar, the way he always had. And anyway, Mitsuki reasoned, he still had all the time in the world.


End file.
